


from one shadow to another

by rowenabane



Category: NCT (Band), WAYV
Genre: Angst, Blood, Blood and Injury, Crime Fighting, Death, Detectives, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Murder, Near Death Experiences, Serial Killers, Stabbing, Vampires, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:08:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28197432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowenabane/pseuds/rowenabane
Summary: Kun has the audacity to smile. “Oh, Johnny,” he says. “You really are a man after my own heart.”Irony. Deep down, they both know the only heart Kun has is inconsequential and dead.
Relationships: Suh Youngho | Johnny/Qian Kun
Comments: 11
Kudos: 96





	from one shadow to another

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bunnieju](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunnieju/gifts).



> this one is for my amazing friend bunnie!!! thank you so much for being an amazing friend and beta and always tolerating my crazy dms <3 i love love love you! i hope you enjoy this even though you threatened to beat my ass like ten times while I was writing it <3 MWAH
> 
> ALSO!!! please heed the tags! this is about vampires and murder so there is a gratuitous amount of blood/stabbing/violence etc. don't read if you don't feel comfortable! u come first <3 enjoy!

The police lines are drawn wide for this one.

The first line of bright yellow tape closes off the street, and the second narrows the crime scene down to a singular area, too far for the eye to see. Even in the day, the shadows between buildings cast the pavement in almost complete darkness.

Johnny stands behind the first line of yellow tape, past the reporters and the curious public. It is as far as any of them will be allowed to go, the bright yellow a warning sign against whatever lies beyond.

He peers over the crowd, squinting to see the barest hint of yellow in the distance. It’s a cold morning, gray in the early winter. He shivers as he watches a woman with a camera walk away from the scene, ducking under the first line of tape and past the crowd. She’s not a reporter—her blue jacket and gloves separate her from the public outside.

“Is it as bad as the last one?” Johnny asks. The photographer turns, narrowing her eyes, trying to place his face. She takes a step closer and her eyes widen.

“You helped with those missing people last year, didn’t you?” She nods. “You did! I recognize you now.”

Johnny shifts uncomfortably. People are beginning to stare. “Yes,” he says quietly. He repeats his question quietly, the cold biting at his skin. “Is it..is it bad?”

Eventually, she shakes her head and shudders, her professionalism shed for a single moment of unease. She doesn’t ask for his name—she recognizes him, if only barely.

“I don’t know how it could get any worse,” she says quietly. She waves at someone in the distance and walks off, leaving him standing behind the crowd.

Two forensic technicians are carrying a black bag between them. They load it into the back of an ambulance. No lights. Johnny feels his stomach drop as the ambulance pulls away, the remaining technicians at the scene talking behind the line. He ducks into the shadows, away from the crowd and the noise.

It is the second dead body in a week. It’s only Thursday.

…

Johnny isn’t surprised when Taeyong turns up at his door after the second murder. Fear is already beginning to sweep the city, murmurs of wild animals. Murmurs of killers in the dark.

Taeyong is just as calm and collected as he was when they met in college, level in every way. His determination is not necessarily something Johnny misses, a drive so ruthless it could be described as heartlessness. Johnny has to admit, though, that whatever he’s doing is working—he’s the youngest police commissioner in a century, on track to become mayor. On track to finding perhaps the worst serial killer of this day and age.

“How have you been, Johnny?” he asks as he steps inside Johnny’s small apartment. “It’s been a while since we talked.”

Johnny hands him a mug of coffee, already growing cold. “You’ve been busy.”

It is not a courtesy call. They both know it. Taeyong pulls a tan folder out of his jacket and places it on the dining table between them, a stark contrast to the shipped and scratched wood.

“Have you heard about the murders?”

Johnny stares at the file, afraid it will somehow come to life between them. “Taeyong, what do you want?”

“After what you did last year I figured you could help,” Taeyong says bluntly. He looks tired. “You’re good at finding people.”

“People,” Johnny clarifies. “Not murderers.”

“It’s the same thing, isn’t it?” Taeyong gently places his mug on the table, still full. 

It is a gift and a curse, he supposes, watching Taeyong slide the file closer. A little luck a little too often and people consider you gifted, think you can find anyone in the world. A missing spouse. A missing child. A missing sibling. Johnny is tired of missing person reports making their way into his hands, tired of the whispers that follow. He’s tired of looking for people that simply aren’t there.

Johnny opens the file on the table and the crime scene photos stare up at him, soulless and overexposed. Grisly in the way they cannot communicate a wholeness of any kind. His eyes glaze over the clinical terms, the unfeeling language used to describe something as horrible and unreal as a body torn apart.

It isn’t that hard to find somebody that wants to be found. It isn't hard to find someone that isn’t hiding.

“Taeyong,” Johnny begins, biting down on the words before he can even say them. “Why?”

Silence. Today, Taeyong doesn’t wear his badge on his coat. Today, he works for no one but himself.

“Please, Johnny,” Taeyong says quietly. He pulls something out of his coat and places it on the table, the heavy metal scraping the wood. It’s a gun, barrel gleaming. “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need you.”

The implications are clear: Johnny does not work for the police force. This meeting never happened. Determination bordering on heartlessness.

Among the crime scene photos is a single shot of an open mouth, filled with braces. The rubber bands wrapped around the metal are lime green and black, the colors chosen by someone who no longer gets to choose. Johnny closes the folder.

“Okay,” he murmurs, the statement almost an admission of defeat. “I’ll help.”

…

The third body turns up on Sunday morning, half-coated in frost. That night, Johnny begins his search.

There isn’t much he knows at this point. Three murders, each random. The case files Taeyong gave him show no obvious similarities between the victims except the way they died—almost torn apart, organs damaged or missing. Johnny avoids looking at the photos as best he can, instead relying on the typed descriptions of each autopsy. The photos stay in the file, turned over.

He starts in the warehouse district. It’s mostly abandoned: only a third of the buildings are still used for anything, and the rest simply stand like monoliths, concrete gray and foreboding.

He isn’t quite sure why he starts here. As he gets out of his car he tries to rationalize his decision, making up logic that had not occurred to him as he was driving over. More than anything else is the _sense_ that there is something here to find, something he is looking for.

Everything is dark. If the air weren’t so dry there would already be a fine layer of icy slush coating the pavement, dirty by morning. Taeyong’s gun is tucked into his coat, a wholly foreign weapon for him to carry. He has never been armed with anything but himself.

He’s been walking for a while when he hears a soft noise, out of place among the concrete. He pauses under a streetlight, looking for the source. He hears it again, low. The sound reminds him of the whine of an injured animal.

“Hello?” he calls out, walking faster towards the sound. “Is anyone there?”

No response. The sound stops.

He continues walking to where he last heard the sound, stomach dropping with each step. It might be a dog or a cat. Something catches his eye in one of the warehouse windows—a dark flutter of movement. 

The warehouse door is propped open. Johnny nudges it with his foot and the hinges squeal in protest. In the shadows he sees two figures embracing, and clamps a hand over his mouth. One of the figures breaks away and turns towards him, a dim outline in the black.

“I’m sorry,” Johnny stammers in embarrassment, already stepping back. The figure says nothing, but as he watches their partner sinks to the floor in a heap, motionless. The dark figure steps out of the shadows and into the weak light from outside.

Johnny takes a step back, head spinning. Gold. The man’s hair is the color of spun gold, the kind a child can only envision in stories. 

“You’ve caught me at a bad time,” the blonde man says. His eyes glimmer red in the dark, his mouth tinted the same shade. Not lipstick, though. There is nothing cosmetic about the blood staining his bottom lip. “Unfortunate for you more so than me.”

“Hands up!” Johnny says, fumbling with the gun in his coat. It's far too clunky in his hands, an unfamiliar instrument of destruction. “This is the police!”

“Where's your badge, Detective?” the man asks, tilting his head. “Off duty, are we?”

The body at his feet shifts, moaning. It’s a young man, still alive.

“Don’t move!” Johnny says, hands shaking against the trigger.

The man doesn’t heed his words, instead turning to run up the stairs of the warehouse. He’s incredibly fast—one second he’s right in front of him and the next he is leaning over the second-floor balcony, the wood railing creaking beneath his hands. A hot spark of anger runs through Johnny as the man smiles and disappears from view.

“You don’t speak like an officer of the law,” the man says from the shadows as Johnny cautiously heads up the stairs. “You don’t look like one, either.”

The second floor is all shelves and old, dusty inventory—cobwebbed boxes and tin cans, unused and unwanted. 

“Give yourself up and I won't shoot,” Johnny offers. The man laughs.

“I recognize you,” he says. “You solved all those missing person cases last year, didn't you? You’re no _real_ detective.” Somewhere, a box topples to the floor. “Just a man playing pretend.”

“I’m not afraid to kill you,” Johnny says word foreign in his mouth, watching the man with the blonde hair throw his head back and laugh. The darkness paints him in flashes—black coat, white shirt, smiling mouth.

“Then do it, Detective Suh,” the man says. “I’m right here.”

He looks the same as a nightmare Johnny once had, the exact same. A memory bubbles up to the surface, hazy with dust.

“Who are you?” Johnny asks, tightening his grip on the gun. He should never have let Taeyong give it to him. The man peers at him through the crowded and dusty shelves and raises an eyebrow. The light makes his eyes seem almost red.

“Don’t you know?”

Johnny flattens himself against the wall. “You haven’t changed since that day,” he calls out, pulling back the hammer on the gun. 

The man lets out a breathless laugh. “You have.”

Johnny aims the gun at the shadow moving quickly across the room. It vanishes between the shelves and he squints, trying to find it again.

A voice behind him. “How well do you remember that day, _Johnny?_ ”

He swings around and finds the blonde man just inches away from the barrel of the gun. The man raises an eyebrow and the memories come rushing back to Johnny, strong enough to knock him off his feet. Yellow, red, blue. Gold, silver, red. Palettes of fear and childish misunderstanding. He sees the beast, now. Everything is painfully clear.

“A bad man having a very bad day,” Johnny chokes out. “You said that.”

The man considers him for a moment, head tilted to the side.

Johnny tries to hide the tremor growing in his hand, building under his tongue. “I saw you kill a man,” he says, placing one hand over the other to steady himself.

The man shrugs, his eyes red in the darkness. “I did.”

How can he look the same? Red, gold, silver—almost two decades, and nothing has changed except the time and place and Johnny. He is the only thing different now: taller, grown, but just as scared.

“Why?” Johnny asks, still pointing the gun at the man’s chest.

“Why what?” The man says, smiling slightly. “Kill a man, or spare you?”

The gun is cold in Johnny’s hand. “Both.”

“Well, I don’t kill children,” the man starts. “And I didn’t appreciate the way that man was watching the playground.” He curls his hand around the barrel of the gun but applies no pressure to move it. “Really, killing him was the lesser evil.”

“Does that make you the greater evil?”

The man smiles and Johnny realizes the redness of his eyes is no trick of the light—his irises bleed crimson, so bright they resemble poisonous berries on a tree. His smile is wide and white. Sharp.

He leans closer. “Perhaps.”

Johnny fires the gun once, right into the man’s chest. He stumbles back, a red stain blooming across the fine fabric of his shirt. His hand is still curled around the gun, mere inches away from a visible hole.

In the deafening silence that follows, the blonde man raises his other hand to the bullet hole in his chest. He fishes out something tiny, gleaming in the blood and darkness.

Johnny suppresses a scream of horror, is already trying to pull the gun away but the man’s grip is like a vise. He holds Johnny’s bullet between his fingers and smiles.

“And here I thought we were being _civil_ ,” he says.

The bullet clatters to the floor.

Johnny fires again but this time the man pushes the gun down towards the ground, twisting it out of Johnny’s hand until it hits the floor. The man kicks to the side and it slides between the railing, hitting the stairs below.

“What are you?” Johnny yells, backing up until his elbow hits the wall. He digs through his pockets, looking for something, anything to defend himself.

“Like you said,” the blonde man smiles. “The greater evil.”

Johnny punches him in the face, knuckles crunching against the bridge of the man’s nose. His head swings back and Johnny pushes him over the railing. His eyes widen in comic disbelief, and he hits the concrete below with a solid thud.

Johnny looks over the railing. The man is lying on his back, nose bleeding all over his face, but he is laughing. It's a terrible laugh, more of a ragged wheeze than anything else. Mirthless. 

“You caught me by surprise,” the man wheezes, still laughing. His shoulders shake. “You caught me by surprise.”

Johnny runs through the shelves and bolts down the stairs, but by the time he gets to the ground floor, he finds that the man is already gone. 

Johnny curses under his breath, shoving the discarded gun back into his pocket. He kneels by the inert body on the floor, a man with a long gash on his neck. 

“Hey,” he whispers, nudging him. He blinks groggily, groaning.

“Where am I?” he asks, sitting up. There’s a pin on his jacket with the city university’s logo on it, a patch underneath that says “Go Team!” in bright red letters. Johnny helps him to his feet. 

“What’s going on?” he groans, rubbing his forehead. 

“Nothing,” Johnny says, looking back into the darkness. “Let me drive you home”

…

When Johnny first meets the blond man, he is seven years old. 

It is a weekend and the playground is full of children, smiling and happy. Summer is fast upon them, the sun already beginning to bake the metal handles of the jungle gym into scalding weapons. 

He is seven. His friends are trying to climb up the tube slide from the bottom and consistently failing, each one tripping and sliding to the bottom to bump into the others. Johnny remembers this day with a startling amount of clarity: the yellow slide, the names of his friends, the red shirt he was wearing. He remembers skinning his elbow on the slide on his try to climb to the top—he makes it halfway up and his sneakers give out from beneath him, sending him tumbling onto the wood mulch carpeting the ground. He remembers the sting, sudden and unwanted but not unbearable. Remembers the little blue bandage his mom had put on it before telling him to be _more careful next time, okay? Are you hungry?_

Johnny remembers. He dreams about this day sometimes, more often than not with the same details. The yellow slide. The red shirt. The blue bandaid.

The first time he sees the blonde man it is in the shadows of the trees surrounding the park. There aren’t that many shadows, honestly—it is a place well-trafficked, the foot trails worn to dirt by the constant movement of feet. Johnny sees a shadow move through the trees and something about it beckons to him, to some unanswered curiosity that he does not yet understand. Johnny glances at his mom, deep in conversation with one of her friends, and takes off towards the trees. The grass is green and untrimmed, almost to his ankles.

The blond man is standing a little off the trail. Sunlight streams through the leafy canopy and makes his hair look like spun gold, the thing of fairy tales. Someone is lying on the ground in front of him, unmoving.

Johnny gasps and then tries to hide behind a tree. He’s not scared, not yet.

The blond man turns slowly, frowning slightly. When he sees Johnny he smiles softly. “Oh, hello there,” he starts, stepping in front of the person on the ground. His long coat hides the person from Johnny’s wide, prying eyes. “Are you lost?”

Johnny stares up at him, at the long metal rod dangling from his ear, the small red stain on his cheek. Johnny will remember this moment in palettes: gold, silver, red. It is too difficult to recall any other way.

“Who’s that?” Johnny asks, pointing to the person on the ground. The blond man grins.

“He’s a bad man having a _very_ bad day,” the blond man says. He crouches down to Johnny’s height, still smiling. “Why don’t you go back and play with your friends?”

There’s a gurgling sound from behind the blond man and for a moment Johnny’s curiosity overtakes him and he tries to look over his shoulder, squinting. The man simply smiles and shifts his weight, blocking the figure from view before Johnny can see anything. His eyes have a faint, reddish hue—a trick of the light, maybe. “That’s not for little eyes to see, I’m afraid.”

The man gently turns him back towards the direction of the playground, pushing him forward. Johnny only looks back once on that thousand-mile journey from the trail, through the grass, back to the yellow slide. He looks back and sees the blond man smile and press a finger to his lips, the universal gesture for _this is our secret, now._

Yellow, red, blue. Gold, silver, red. Johnny goes back to the slide and clambers to the very top before sliding down again. This time, he skins his knee.

…

Obsession can be a strange, dangerous thing. Johnny lives with his, kept silent in his chest. He dreams. He has nightmares. He wakes in the night with his hands stretched to the ceiling, half convinced that something lurks over him, preparing to strike. He never grows out of this habit.

When Johnny was seven, he met a murderer. He is still dealing with the repercussions.

Life is strange: in his nightmares, he never imagined finding the man again.

...

“I haven’t found anything yet,” Johnny tells Taeyong.

Taeyong nods as if he understands. He hands Johnny a file, not physically heavy but weighted with a burden too large for any one man to carry. “There’s been another one.”

“Are you sure, Taeyong?” Johnny asks, hands trembling. 

Taeyong frowns as if he does not understand.

Sighing, he pulls Taeyong’s gun out of his coat. “Take this, then. I don’t need it.”

A gust of air chills his fingers as he hands over the gun, the metal freezing to the touch. Taeyong frowns slightly but says nothing as he slides it into his belt. 

“You need to protect yourself,” he says, but does not argue.

Johnny shrugs. His hand closes around the folding pocket knife he bought this morning, tucked away in his coat. The casing is hard plastic, comfortable in his palm. Warm.

“There are other ways,” he says. The city is cold.

…

Johnny goes back to the warehouse. He does not know why. There is a pull to this place, something that he cannot put into words. A curiosity. Anxiety at not knowing.

He slides in through the half-boarded side doors. Everything is the same as the other night, minus the injured college student on the floor—the dark, abandoned walls. The dusty shelves. The creaking stairs.

“You’re back. Forget something?”

Johnny looks up slowly, pulse in his mouth. The man is standing behind the railing, his dark coat swaying like a shadow in the wind. He smiles, and even from here Johnny can see the red tint of his mouth, soft and wet.

“I want to know who you are,” Johnny calls up the stairs. The man tilts his head as if he is weighing his options. 

“Kun,” he finally says. He narrows his eyes. “No gun this time, I see.”

“You have sharp eyes".

Kun grins. “Just wait until you see my teeth.”

“How old are you?” Johnny asks, watching Kun sit on the stairs, leaning back. “You don’t look like you’ve aged in 20 years.”

“How old do you think I am, Detective?”

“I’m not a detective.” Johnny steps closer. “Early 20s, maybe. But how?”

“The art of aging gracefully,” Kun responds. “You ask too many questions, Detective.”

“Are you the one committing the murders?” Johnny asks, closing his hand around the knife in his pocket. Kun sneers as if the very question is a blow to his pride. 

“Of course not.” Kun stands, walking back up the stairs into the darkness. “I doubt you’d believe me, though.”

He doesn’t believe him. He doesn’t believe a lot of things, but there’s an answer he needs to hear, even if he’s not ready for it. How does a man not age a day in 20 years? How does a man kill another and not feel a thing?

He follows Kun up the stairs, the wood creaking dangerously beneath his weight. He sees a flutter of dark fabric among the shelves and his heart races. Warning signs.

“What are you?”

Laughter echoes off the walls, dark and dangerous. “Wouldn’t _you_ like to know.”

Johnny turns and Kun grabs the front of his coat, grinning. Fangs. Johnny’s brain struggles with the logic of it all: _fangs_.

Johnny slashes at Kun’s throat with the pocketknife but he simply ducks, wrapping an arm around his waist and throwing him over the railing. Johnny hits the stairs below with a solid thud, the old wood snapping beneath the force of impact. He struggles to his feet as Kun jumps cleanly over the railing and lands on the platform just below. 

“Let me know if you need a break,” Kun says smoothly, adjusting his coat. Johnny grits his teeth and runs forward to slide the knife’s edge along Kun’s ribs. He makes it halfway: the blade snags on Kun’s coat and both of them are pulled forward by his momentum, tumbling down the next set of rotting wooden steps. Kun grabs his shoulders as they fall, and when the ground finally becomes level again he anchors a leg over Johnny’s waist and wraps his hands around his throat. There’s a small cut on his lower lip, already sealing itself shut.

“You aren’t human,” Johnny grunts, slicing upward through Kun’s wrist. It's an unpracticed motion, sloppy, but it still works—Kun lets out an unearthly howl and scrambles backward, blood streaming through his fingers where he holds the wound with his other hand. His eyes are fully red now, and when he bares his teeth they are long and sharp.

“Excellent observation,” Kun hisses.

Johnny stands, swaying slightly. “Not so mouthy now, are you?”

Kun has the audacity to smile. “Oh, Johnny,” he says. “You really are a man after my own heart.”

Irony. Deep down, they both know the only heart Kun has is inconsequential and dead.

Kun lets go of his wrist. Blood smears his skin but the wound is gone, knitting itself together into a clean line of pink-white scar tissue. Johnny takes a deep breath and in between heartbeats Kun’s hand closes around his throat. He chokes on the remaining air, fingers clawing at Kun’s bloodied wrist. 

“Give me one reason I shouldn’t kill you,” Kun says slyly, smiling. His eyes are an arctic winter that never ends, and when he smiles something sinister lurks behind it, another beast in the shadows. Kun smiles like he is about to do a very bad thing and does not care about the consequences.

“There’s a murderer on the loose,” Johnny wheezes, lungs straining. “I’m going to catch them.”

Kun runs his tongue over his sharp teeth. The red of his eyes dims. “Are you really?”

He lets go and Johnny coughs, sucking air in greedy gasps. His knife is on the ground several feet away, and he watches as Kun picks it up, examining it in the half-light. 

“Silver would do more harm, but this is acceptable.” He throws it at Johnny’s feet. “Good luck with the whole murder thing.”

“Fuck you,” Johnny coughs. Kun’s eyes light up with inhuman joy.

“Anytime,” he says, winking as he walks out of the warehouse with his hands in his pockets. The door closes behind him and Johnny presses his forehead to the concrete floor, holding in a scream.

Great.

…

Vampires are not _real_. They do not _exist._

Johnny pours himself a cup of coffee and looks out the window of his apartment. Vampires aren’t real. And yet…

Coffee splashes all over his hand. He curses and grabs a towel to wipe up the mess. Vampires aren’t real.

Questions bubble up in him, unanswered and threatening to spill over. He looks at the case files on the table, five total, each holding their terrible secrets. There are variables in the equation that Johnny had not previously accounted for. Unknowns.

Unknown: if someone is not truly alive, can you kill them?

“If I was an undead creature,” Johnny mutters to himself. “Where would I go?”

He pours his coffee down the sink. It's already cold, anyway.

…

“You found me,” Kun says, mouth lifting at the corner in the very convincing imitation of a smile. The music in the club pounds off the walls, lights turning the shadows into a dizzying mix of purple and blue.

“I have to ask you some questions.” Johnny pulls at the collar of his shirt, sweating. Someone brushes into him and he almost jumps out of his skin, every nerve frayed to the point of being torn. It’s a classically bad idea with no clear outcome, and with every passing second he feels more vulnerable, more out of place. “You’d think people would stay in with a murderer on the loose.”

Kun takes a sip of his drink, clear. It almost looks like water. “Humans generally feel safer in crowds.”

“You’re not human.”

“You’ve said that already.” Kun finishes his drink and places it on the bar. His heavy coat is gone, traded for a silk shirt and a pair of dark jeans. A metal bar dangles from his left ear, shining every time a strobe light passes over it. Johnny feels woefully underdressed in his t-shirt and jeans.

“You’re a vampire,” Johnny says. Kun bares his teeth, not fanged at all, and grabs his collar.

“Say it for the whole world to hear, why don’t you?” He narrows his eyes. “How did you find me?”

“The college student,” Johnny stammers, Kun’s knuckles brushing his throat. “The uni kids love this place.”

It had been simple, really. The student had asked him to take him back to his friends at this very club, worried they would be upset that he had gone missing. He had no recollection of anything.

“What they say is true, then.” Kun lets go of his collar, smoothing it flat. “You do have a knack for finding people.” He looks out among the crowd and grabs Johnny’s arm. “Let’s dance, Detective.”

Johnny lets Kun pull him onto the dance floor, eyes dark. He tentatively puts his hand on Kun’s waist, leaning down to hear him speak.

“I could rip out your heart,” Kun says smoothly. “Easy.”

Johnny swallows, heart pounding. “Do you think the killer is human?”

“Not my job to speculate,” Kun says, swaying. "Don't you still suspect me, your resident undead creature?”

“Part of me does.”

The side of Kun’s mouth quirks up. “Every good guy needs his villain, doesn’t he?”

Johnny pulls his hand back but Kun grabs his wrist, nails digging into his skin. His smile reminds him of a snake: fanged. Venomous.

“I’m trying to help people,” Johnny says, struggling to keep his voice low. He shakes Kun’s hand off his wrist. “Something I’m fairly sure you never do.”

“Don’t you get tired of being the good guy?” Kun asks, draping his arms over Johnny’s shoulders. To the untrained eye, they seem like partners on the dance floor, features lost in the dark neon lights of the club. The music drowns out Kun’s voice and mindlessly, thoughtlessly, Johnny leans forward to hear him. They are too close, like this. “Don’t you want to be bad, for once?”

Kun can’t kill him here, not with so many people. It would be an awful bloody mess: witnesses and victims, too many warm bodies in the way. Johnny’s fingers curl into fists and he reluctantly grabs the hem of Kun’s shirt.

Kun smiles. They both know the odds. 

“I’m not a creature like you,” Johnny spits, head throbbing. Kun smells like iron and salt and something else, something that speaks of seawater and sun. He leans closer and stands on his toes, mouth so close to his ear that he can feel his breath fan down his neck. It leaves cold pinpricks across his skin.

“You don’t have to be,” Kun murmurs. 

Too many witnesses here. Johnny can feel himself starting to sweat, the heat and noise overwhelming as it presses in on him. Kun is too close, _far_ too close, his mouth just above the soft spot along Johnny’s throat. Johnny knows he could do it. Wonders why he doesn’t.

“You smell scared,” Kun says, eyes flickering up to his. Johnny realizes they have both been mindlessly swaying to the music, the beat an easy rhythm for them to settle into. “Do I scare you?”

“No,” Johnny says, baring his teeth. “Nothing about you changes how I feel.”

“Harsh words,” Kun says softly, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I guess I must try harder, then.”

Johnny feels the world spinning beneath him, the knife in his pocket a lead weight that threatens to pull him to the side, uneven and off-kilter. Kun could do it. He could kill him right then and there because nothing _matters_ to him. A life is a life until it isn't, and at that point it becomes meaningless.

He has never been this close to something so dangerous, and some small part of him wants Kun to just _do_ it. Rip him apart. Go red-eyed right here on the dance floor and tear into him like he is a papier-mache replica of a man. He wonders what it would feel like, to meet death like that. To see Kun laugh as he pulls out his heart, joyous. Victorious.

Kun pulls a piece of paper out of his shirt pocket and then slides it into the pocket of Johnny’s jeans, wrist gliding over the bare sliver of skin at his waist. He suppresses a cold shiver and sees Kun’s eyes go hungry and dark.

“You know where to find me,” Kun whispers. He smiles again, and in a fit of unfamiliar anger, Johnny wants to claw the expression from his face with his bare hands. “Good night, Johnny.”

The world spins and Johnny watches Kun disappear among the heaving crowd. Everywhere he walks a pocket opens and closes until he is out of view and hidden. 

Johnny pulls the paper out of his pocket. An address is written on it in faint, red ink.

…

When Johnny was seven, he witnessed a murder. Now, almost twenty years later, he is holding the murderer's address in one hand and his phone in the other.

It's a cold case, now. Johnny remembers being 16 again, someone saying something to him about an unsolved murder. He remembers that nameless curiosity welling up in him, unbidden. 

It had all come rushing back to him when he first saw the photos online—a man lying motionless in the woods, throat all torn open, skin horrid white. Eyes open and unseeing. Johnny can still feel that revulsion pool in his stomach, nausea slithering up his throat as if he had swallowed a cobra. 

His phone vibrates in his hand with a message from Taeyong. 

_Another one,_ it reads. _There’s been another one._

…

The address takes him to an abandoned house near the edge of town, a gothic remnant of the city before it became a city. The door is propped open, and the hinges let out an awful shriek when Johnny enters. Leaves are scattered across the floor, and the entire house has a damp, earthy smell.

“I wondered how long it would take you,” a voice says. “Feel free to turn on the light.”

A bare lightbulb hangs from the ceiling, the chain covered in cobwebs. Johnny pulls it and it flickers weakly to life, the dim yellow light creating even deeper shadows than before. He wipes his hand on his shirt and a fine layer of dust follows.

Kun smiles at him from his seat on the other side of the room. The decaying upholstered chair he sits in is one of only two furniture pieces in the room: a table rests in front of him, one of the corners broken off completely. “Are you here to kill me? It’s not murder if I’m not alive.”

“I’m considering it,” Johnny says, slamming the knife into the wall. It embeds itself several inches into the rotting wood. “I don’t even know why I came.”

It’s a lie: he knows exactly why he came. A small part of him burns with the knowledge that there is something _more_ , some knowledge just out of his reach. 

Kun raises an eyebrow. “Say what you want,” he says, drinking something red from a long-stemmed wine glass. “It doesn’t matter what I am. We both want the same thing.”

“Which is?” Johnny pulls the knife out of the wall and throws it at Kun’s head, the blade embedding itself in the opposite wall less than an inch from Kun’s ear. Lucky throw. Kun doesn’t even flinch, his hands steady as he raises the wine glass to his mouth. His eyes twinkle with mischief. 

“It’s not very logical to let someone else eat up my food supply,” Kun says plainly, pulling the knife out of the wall with one hand. He uses it to stir whatever is in his glass then lifts the blade to his tongue to lick off the excess. The liquid may be red but it is far too thick to be just wine. Johnny feels the skin on the back of his neck tingle. _Food supply_. “And I’m sure you don’t like, ah, unknown variables.”

“I am not working with you,” Johnny says, tapping at the hanging lightbulb. He grits his teeth when the light flickers. Dark. Light. “I will _never_ work with you.”

“I'm starting to think you like me,” Kun says, grinning. A sharp white fang glimmers in the semi-darkness. “Do you like me?”

Johnny scowls and the lightbulb gives out. Dark. Light. Kun is no longer in the chair on the other side of the room. Dark. Light. Johnny spins frantically, trying to locate Kun’s shifting from in the shadows. His wine glass is resting on the table.

Dark. 

Johnny turns and feels a knife pushed up beneath his chin, the blade flat against his skin. Kun pushes him against the wall and he braces his palms against the rotting wood, heartbeat bouncing off his ribs. Kun is too close, surprisingly warm for a dead thing.

“It’s a nice knife,” Kun muses. His dark eyes zero in on him like spotlights, unnatural, inhuman, wholly uninviting. His smile is painted red and white, cold and bloody. “Do you think I should keep it?”

“Sure,” Johnny says coolly, flexing his hands against the wall. “Do you want a suggestion as to where I think you should put it?”

Kun laughs, the sound like the light music of bells in a cathedral, and lets him go. He slides the knife into Johnny’s jacket.

“I expect I’ll see you soon,” Kun says, the light flickering again. “Let me know if you change your mind.”

“I won’t,” Johnny grits into the flickering black. Kun doesn’t hear him—he’s already gone, leaving the wine glass on the table empty in his wake.

…

Another body turns up, mangled beyond repair. It takes a desperate kind of cruelty to do this to another person, to pull them apart like tissue paper and leave them in the streets for the wandering cats to poke their paws into. Johnny sees a feral alley cat sniff at the remains curiously, then meow plaintively. He kneels and extends a hand to it, gently cooing. It ignores him and turns around, running into the darkness.

The photos and descriptions don’t do the true horror justice. For a moment Johnny doesn’t know what he’s looking at—trash, maybe. A dirty heap of snow. Closer he sees things that gleam black in the streetlight, shapes that do not fit into the angles and order of the city. Things organic, out of place and out of body. He presses the back of his hand against his teeth, inhaling sharply.

It is close to midnight and the streetlights cast yellow streaks onto the pavement. Johnny stumbles upon the body by accident, and even though every nerve in his body urges him to call it in, to say something, he doesn’t.

There has to be a better way. There has to be a better method to finding this killer, something more substantial than wandering around in the dark, drawing straws for a location.

“Are you going to report that?” A voice says from behind Johnny, low and familiar. He doesn’t flinch, not this time—he’s gotten used to Kun creeping up on him in all sorts of ways.

“Eventually,” Johnny says, watching Kun inch closer to the body. He dips a finger into the blood pooling on the pavement and sticks it in his mouth. He immediately grimaces, expression turning from one of curiosity to utter disgust. He shakes his head and backs away.

“Bad blood,” Kun says, wiping at his mouth. “Something is wrong with it.”

“They’re dead,” Johnny says. “Doesn’t the blood of dead people just taste bad in general?”

Kun’s eyes turn red as he frowns. “Not like that,” he says. “This tastes poisonous. They were likely sick.”

Johnny considers the body for a moment longer. The unidentified corpse is wearing a pair of hightop converse, scuffed and bloody. One shoelace is undone, and the hems of their jeans bear the telltale fray of dragging. This body has been moved.

“The police can handle the rest,” Johnny says, watching the cat from earlier crawl out of the shadows. This time it runs straight to him, butting its head against his ankle. He reaches down to pet it and looks up to see Kun giving him a soft, fond smile. Johnny glares at him as he scoops the cat into his arms.

“Do you have something to say?” Johnny asks, watching Kun’s soft smile spread into a ravenous, fanged grin. His black coat flutters behind him, and when he shifts Johnny can see that the red shirt beneath is unbuttoned almost to the point of being indecent. He swallows thickly and then looks away, rubbing the alley cat behind the ears. It has rather large ears, tufted with fur and twitching every which way.

“Oh, I have many things to say,” Kun drawls, eyes dragging over him from head to toe. “But I’m not sure they would be appropriate in the present company.”

The cat meows, wriggling in Johnny’s arms. He gently lowers it to the ground and watches it run back to the safety of the wild street, tail bouncing. He scowls at Kun.

“You’re sick,” he says, leaving the body behind on the street. Kun shrugs.

“It’s in my nature,” he says, walking a couple of paces behind Johnny. “What’s in your nature, Johnny?”

“I’m not working with you,” Johnny says. “You’re murderous—”

“Handsome.”

“Evil—”

“Charming.”

“An annoying piece of shit—”

Johnny is so deep in his frustration that he doesn’t notice Kun has stopped walking until he is several feet ahead of him. He turns and sees Kun staring at him, red-eyed and sharp in the dark, a shadow with ill intent.

“You need me,” Kun says. “You can’t do this without me.”

The wind picks up between them, its own invisible beast. Johnny does not understand the uneasy truce that comes between them in moments like this. The street is quiet. Someone has just been murdered. What’s one more body on the pavement? What’s one more puddle of blood spilling into the cracks? 

_Do it,_ Johnny wants to whisper, just to see Kun’s reaction. _Do it._

“I need you like I need a hole in my head,” Johnny says. “I don’t.”

Kun smiles. “Are you sure?” He points at the body. “That’s bad blood,” he says calmly. “It doesn’t make for a very good meal. If your suspect isn’t of _human_ origin, they’ll strike again soon, _Detective_.”

Johnny walks away, heart pounding in his chest. He doesn’t look back.

“The next time I see you I’ll kill you,” Johnny says, words twisting in knots as they leave his mouth. Kun laughs mockingly somewhere behind him, his voice echoing in a way that suggests he is both everywhere and nowhere at once.

“Is that all?” he calls out. “Unimaginative.”

Behind him, the street lamp flickers.

…

Taeyong brings him the case file but says nothing about the way his hands shake when he takes it, the folder heavy in his hands. He opens it and all the gory details are laid bare: nothing stolen except bits and parts of the body. A lung. A chunk of a kidney. The tip of their tongue. Everything else spread open and apart, cracked open like an egg on the asphalt.

“Are you alright?” Taeyong asks. Johnny snaps the file shut, inhales slowly.

“Of course,” he responds, tucking the folder under his arm. 

When Taeyong leaves he spreads the file on the coffee table, the raw evidence bare before him. The photos don’t quite capture the horror of what he saw but they somehow make it fresh in his mind, a piece of driftwood pulled to the surface of a boiling sea.

He shoves everything back into the folder.

…

“It takes a killer to know a killer,” Johnny says into the darkness.

Kun gives him a fanged grin and sticks two blood coated fingers into his mouth. His tongue darts over his teeth, stained dark, dark red. His eyes dip shut for a moment, fluttering in content. “Is this an invitation, Detective?”

Johnny does not smile back. He puts the case file on the broken table between them, the light flickering above. “It's a warning.”

Kun pulls the file towards himself, fingers covered in rings. He opens it and pulls out a laminated photograph, eyes skimming over the details. “You know I love an ultimatum, Detective.”

“If you help me find this murderer I’ll let you walk free.” Johnny inhales sharply as Kun’s eyes flicker up to him, deep crimson. “A free man.”

“Free from what?” Kun laughs breathlessly. “Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t catch me.” He bares his teeth. “You have no _evidence_.”

“That’s true,” Johnny says. “But some punishments exist outside the law.”

Kun regards him silently, standing. He puts the photo on the table—a still shot of a hand lying on the ground, fingers splayed, palm filled with blood. There’s a scar on the hand, star shaped.

There is an unspoken threat between them that cannot be put into words. It is the suggestion of great harm with no specifics. Johnny cannot say he’ll kill Kun: he knows it is possible but the specifics are lost to him. There are no quick 10 step guides to killing the local nuisance vampire, and if there are Johnny has yet to find them.

Kun extends his hand and gives Johnny a grin sharp enough to cut. “I look forward to our partnership.”

Johnny takes his hand, skin crawling where their fingers meet. Kun’s skin is cold and dry, like a corpse. He gets the damning sensation that he is making a grave mistake, but it is far too late to turn back.

A corpse. It’s not far from the truth.

…

“The first victim was killed here,” Johnny says, standing in front of a dumpster. The asphalt is stained a dark red, mostly faded from several days of rain. “Early 40s. Male. He lived in that apartment building over there.”

The street lamp casts a man-sized shadow where Kun crouches on the pavement. “You do know there are professionals that do this, right? People the city _pays_ to solve crimes?”

“Shut up unless you have something helpful to say.” Johnny sweeps the weak beam from his flashlight behind the dumpster. “The killer must have been waiting for him.”

There are partnerships and then there’s this: two people tied together with the thinnest of threads, trying to find common ground. Johnny watches Kun hiss at a cat in the shadows, sharp teeth bared, and shudders. A beast. 

“The bodies were ripped apart,” Johnny says. “What if the killer wasn’t human?”

“Oh, Johnny,” Kun says, winking. “Men can be terrible, too.”

…

They visit each of the crime scenes separately, one after the other. The city park, quiet at night. The alley, dark and wet. A parking garage, smelling faintly of diesel fuel.

“Your first mistake was assuming that I committed the murders,” Kun says. “This is a big city, Johnny. A lot of potential killers.”

“Only one of you,” Johnny says, glaring at Kun so hard he could burn a hole between those dark eyes. “Only one of your...kind.”

Kun shrugs, and Johnny frowns. 

“Are there more of you?” he asks, turning on his flashlight. “Here? In the city?”

Kun is silent for a long time, the shadows dancing across his face becoming distorted creatures of their own.

“Not anymore,” he whispers.

Johnny doesn’t press for an explanation. They’re standing in another alley, almost identical to the one where the second murder was committed. The asphalt is damp with rain, the excess water draining down into the sewer.

“Your killer prefers darkness to do their work,” Kun says, pulling on the ladder from the fire escape. “And time. All the murders have occurred in isolated areas.”

“Make sense.” Johnny shines the light onto the fire escape. “They’ve also been taking trophies.”

“Sick.” Kun pulls himself up the ladder and hangs upside down, crossing his arms over his chest in what Johnny assumes is his interpretation of the modern day vampire. He winks at Johnny. “Maybe they eat them?”

Johnny gags. “I sure hope not.”

“If it helps, my kind will only bleed a victim.” Kun swings upwards, hanging from the balcony like a child on a playground. “Usually not to death. We aren’t _organ thieves_.”

“Good to know.” A car drives past the alley, the first in over an hour. “Not a lot of traffic in this area. Do you think the killer walked?”

“That’s a lot of walking for one person,” Kun points out. “Even if they lived in the dead center of where the murders occurred, they’d still be walking several miles each night.”

“It would be too tiring.”

“For you, maybe.” Kun drops to the ground. “Are we looking for vehicle tracks?”

“I’m not sure.” Johnny walks into the street, but as he steps off the curb a car whizzes past him, so close that the headlights blind him. Kun grabs his coat, jerking him back and almost off his feet.

“Watch where you’re going,” Kun sneers. “Fool.”

Johnny shivers where Kun touched him. “Show some respect,” he snaps. “Someone died here.”

Kun bares his teeth, but his eyes glitter. “Of course, Detective. I wouldn’t want to dishonor the dead.”

…

The city lives. It breathes, moves, has its own currents and rhythms. Johnny has lived in this city, been a part of _this city_ for all his life. He knows its heartbeat like his own.

The city is quiet tonight. Five murders. The city sleeps and dies, is resurrected and buried. He stands in the middle of a street he has never seen entirely empty, battling the weightless feeling threatening to knock him off his feet.

There must be something he’s missing. Something they’re all missing, every damned person in this city. Living. Unliving.

Kun stands beside him, blonde hair falling in curls over his eyes. “You’re quiet tonight, Detective.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Stop pretending to be something you’re not,” Kun responds. He pauses. “This isn’t your responsibility, you know. None of this is.”

Johnny turns to him. “What?”

Kun sneers, annoyed. “You and your savior complex is going to get you killed. Not everyone needs saving, Detective.” Kun rubs at an imaginary speck of dirt on his sleeve. “Those missing people last year. You found 20 of them all by yourself.”

A pause. “19,” Johnny says quietly. “The last one was dead.”

Guilt is a strange, strange thing.

“You still found them, though.” Kun turns his red eyes on Johnny, the color a warning in the night. “You don’t need to find everyone that’s lost. This is the police department’s duty, not yours.”

“Don’t tell me what to do. You don’t know a _thing_ about me.”

“I know enough.” 

At some level, Kun is _right_ —that's the part that hurts the most. After the second murder he had convinced himself that maybe that would be it, that he could find the culprit and stop any others. Several dead bodies later and he is reeling with the recurring _maybe._ _Maybe if I had done this. Maybe if I do that. Maybe._

Johnny grits his teeth. “Shut the hell up.”

Kun shrugs, walking away. Johnny watches him go, assessing something he thought was true that no longer is.

…

“You said one of the victims was sick,” Johnny says tiredly, rubbing at his eyes. “None of these files say anything about any of them being ill.”

“I’m never wrong about these things,” Kun huffs, arms crossed over his chest. He’s sprawled out on Johnny’s couch, staring at the ceiling. “I have several centuries worth of experience.”

Johnny chokes on air. “ _Centuries?_ ”

“I told you. I’m aging _gracefully._ ”

“That explains why you’re so grumpy all the time. Old bones.”

Kun sits up. “You should show me some respect. I’m your senior.”

Johnny throws his marker at Kun’s head. “That’s for sure. A senior citizen.”

Kun catches it in midair and bares his teeth. There’s something different in his eyes, though—softer, more genuine. Almost human. For a moment Johnny holds his breath, unsure if he’s waiting for the moment to pass or trying to draw it out for an eternity.

“What are you looking at?” Kun asks, raising an eyebrow. The sharpness is back, the flat edge of a knife turned onto its side. Johnny exhales.

“Nothing,” Johnny says, tearing his eyes away. “Let’s go check out the hospital.”

…

“I’m sorry,” the doctor says, holding the autopsy report for Victim 4 in his hands. He shakes his head. “We don’t have any patient files for that person. They may have gone to a private practice. Are you two detectives?”

“Yes, we are.” Kun smiles, eyes half-red. “And we truly appreciate your help. We would _also_ appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone we were here.”

Johnny frowns at Kun. The doctor seems completely enamored, mouth open. He blinks, eyes glimmering.

The hospital is busy today, nurses and doctors urgently walking up and down the halls. In one door. Out the other. A doctor bumps into Johnny’s side and apologizes, adjusting his glasses before scurrying on to some other important task. Everything is bright and sterile, not abandoned at all.

“Of course,” the doctor eventually says. He smiles and Kun’s eyes go back to a lighter brown, inconspicuous. “Anything to help.”

... 

“When did you learn to do that?” Johnny asks as they leave. “What did you do, hypnotize him?”

Kun holds up a hand to shield his eyes from the bright sunlight. The air is freezing, biting at every uncovered inch of skin, but the sun remains brutal. The sky is cloudless, bright blue. 

“I simply made a suggestion,” Kun grumbles. “Can we walk a little faster? I’m getting a headache.”

“You can do that?”

“Yes,” Kun says, flinging open the car door. “And?”

Johnny starts the car. “Isn’t that a little...unethical?”

Kun stares at him. “I’m dead and drink blood, Johnny. I think we’re past the point where conventional ethics apply.”

They sit in silence for a couple of minutes as Johnny pulls out of the parking lot, Kun slumped as far down in his seat as possible to avoid the sun. 

“Would you ever do that to me?” Johnny asks, a lump in his throat.

“If I wanted to,” Kun says, hands over his eyes. “I would have done it already.”

Back to square one. The proverbial drawing board.

…

The next murder takes place near the edge of the city, far from all the buildings except one.

“A church?” Kun hisses. “You want to search a _church?_ ”

“It's abandoned,” Johnny argues, switching on his flashlight. “What? Can’t walk on sacred ground?”

Kun exhales, almost laughing. “Nothing is _sacred_ anymore, Johnny. You should know that.”

Kun shifts like the night—cold one minute and scalding the next. Some nights he can't seem to hold still or keep a straight face, smiling and running his hands across gravel and concrete and grass. Childish glee. Other nights he will simply stand in the shadows, hands hidden in the pockets of his long black coat, watching. Eyes red. Tense.

Tonight he is neither of these things, shifting from exhaustion to frustration to almost laughter. Johnny ignores it, for now, as they make their way to the church. It’s surrounded by an old cemetery.

“Look,” Johnny says, unnerved by the lateness of the hour, the cold fog drifting over the ground. Headstones crop up in the distance, buried in snow. “Dead people. Maybe you can catch up with some old friends.”

“Ha ha,” Kun grumbles. “Let's just get this over with.”

The rest of the drive goes by in awkward silence, tension thick enough to hold two bodies in suspension. Eventually, Kun leans forward, sighing, mood shifting like a wave.

“How many times have you threatened to kill me?”

Johnny pulls up to the side of the church frowning. “I don’t know. A couple of times.”

“Have you ever really meant it?” Kun asks, grinning. 

“Sometimes. Get out of the car.”

“You have a mean streak a mile wide.” Kun smiles. “That makes you more dangerous than you’d like to admit.”

“That doesn’t make me like you,” Johnny huffs, cracking open the abandoned doors of the church. They've been chained shut for so long that the iron on the handles rusts off in flakes, blood-red at his feet. He slams his shoulder against the door and it creaks open, catching on the uneven floor.

“It makes you close enough,” Kun says, pushing open the door with ease. The hinges grate against each other and Johnny winces at the high, keening sound. “The wrong set of influences and you could be just as bad as anyone else.”

Johnny shines his flashlight into the empty space. “Are you done, or do I have to listen to your abstract moral philosophies for the rest of the night?” 

Kun shrugs, running his hand along the back of an oak pew. “Just something to think about.”

Johnny ignores him, sweeping the flashlight towards the abandoned altar. A ring of wilted flowers hangs from the podium at the front of the room, the petals so decimated they could hardly be considered flowers. “The last victim was killed less than a mile from here. Does anything here look familiar to you?”

“Familiar?” Kun scoffs. “Do I look like I regularly attend Sunday services?”

“You know what I mean.”

Kun sneers and walks up to the podium, considering the dead flowers. He grabs the sides and flings it sideways, the heavy wood hitting the floor with enough force to make the ground quake. The crash is far too loud in the silence and Johnny flinches, stepping back. Dry flower petals skitter across the floor.

“Well, I don’t see any especially large bats or _open coffins_.” Kun scowls, unsettled again. His eyes glow. “Dead end, Detective.”

“I’m still going to take a look around,” Johnny mutters, talking to himself more than anything. “I don’t think our killer would just wait in the middle of nowhere for someone to happen by.”

“You never know,” Kun grumbles. He’s uncharacteristically tense tonight, voice strained like a rubber band pulled too tight. “Some people enjoy that sort of thing.”

“What's up with you,” Johnny mutters, voice low despite the relative emptiness. “You don’t seem like your usual bubbly self.”

“I’ve been so busy these days chasing after you that I’ve scarcely had any time to eat,” Kun complains, voice a bowstring drawn taut.

Oh.

 _Eat._ It's a strange synonym for _sucking the blood out of a living body,_ but he supposes all words have their connotations.

“That’s too bad,” Johnny mutters. He peers out the window of the church, looking down at the graveyard below. Kun huffs from behind him, sprawled out on a polished oak pew. “I don’t see how that’s my problem.”

“I’m hungry,” Kun says again, stretching his arms above his head. “I don’t suppose you could help me with that.”

Johnny's stomach capsizes at the thought, heaving like a ship at sea. An indescribable warmth claws up his throat and stays there, the thought and feeling similar to the taste of embarrassment. 

“No,” Johnny chokes out, looking out the window again. He turns off the flashlight. “I can’t.”

The church is dark save for the signs that say EXIT in bright red letters. They cast a sinister red glow all along the balcony, turning the pews from oak brown to cherry dark, the natural shadows to horror movie effects. The lights really shouldn’t work, not after all this time.

Kun closes his eyes and presses a hand to his forehead, grimacing slightly as if he is in pain. His lower lip is soft and round and pink, almost human. It takes almost Herculean effort for Johnny to pull his gaze away.

A feeling similar in taste and shape and form to embarrassment, but not quite. Shame? Johnny shuffles through all the nameable human emotions, trying to match them together like puzzle pieces.

“How hungry are you?”

Kun squeezes his eyes shut, opens them, and stares at the ceiling. They glow in the red lighting. “Enough.”

Johnny weighs the odds, the necessity versus the risk. It doesn’t help him to have his temporary partner go feral and kill him before the night is through. It also doesn’t help to give him a taste of his blood, no matter how small. Johnny doesn’t enjoy the thought of his blood being in anyone’s veins but his own, but it beats having Kun murder him before the sun rises.

Kun’s white shirt is unbuttoned just enough to reveal the tip of his collarbone, his skin pale and smooth. Johnny rolls up his shirtsleeve and at the sound Kun turns his head, eyes narrowing.

“What are you doing?” he asks, sitting up. His hair falls over his eyes, unkempt.

“Feeding your stupid ass,” Johnny says, throat closing. Kun raises an eyebrow, eyes going stoplight red.

“Are you sure that’s a commitment you’re willing to make?” Kun asks, smiling slightly. He seems to Johnny like a cat that has finally lured in its prey. “You don’t know what I might do to you.”

“Shut up,” Johnny says. He’s shivering. “Do you want my help or not?”

“Are you going to stand all the way over there?” Kun asks.

Johnny wills himself forward, close enough that Kun can reach out and wrap his wrist in his hand. Kun pulls him closer until Johnny is standing between his knees. He looks up at him and for a moment a shadow of doubt crosses his face, as dark and surreal as the inside of the church.

“Are you sure?” Kun asks softly, dragging his thumb over the inside of Johnny’s wrist. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Johnny can barely breathe, his skin tingling beneath Kun’s touch. Up close he can see the dark circles under Kun’s eyes, the slight pallor of his lips, as if the color has been drained from his skin. Death hangs on him like a shroud, and for one jolting moment Johnny stands there and thinks _this is a man who is dead_. _This is a body that has been buried._

“Just do it,” Johnny says quietly, his bravery ebbing and flowing like the tide. “Before I change my mind.”

Kun pulls him closer and crosses his legs behind Johnny’s to stabilize him, pressing his lips to Johnny’s wrist in the featherlight imitation of a kiss. Johnny remembers when he was younger and he would get shots, the way his mom would always say _count to three baby, you won’t even feel it!_ He’s sure he’ll feel this, and he’s even more sure that counting to three won't help.

Kun places a hand on the small of his back, fingers splayed, and bites into the soft skin at his wrist. The shock is instant and numbing—he gasps as if his hand has been plunged into ice water and tries to pull away. Kun’s hand tightens around his, anchoring him to the spot.

 _Stop_ , Johnny thinks. _Stop stop stop it hurts it hurts_

And then it doesn’t. A strange rushing sensation travels up his wrist, warm and comforting, somehow familiar. Johnny feels his knees go weak and he wavers for a moment, head spinning.

When Kun finally lets go, his teeth are stained red. His white shirt is spotless. If there’s anything good Johnny can say about Kun, it's that he’s a very clean eater. 

“Are you okay?” Kun asks, frowning slightly. He stands and grabs Johnny’s arms, holding him upright. “Speak to me.”

“Just a little dizzy,” Johnny says closing his eyes. He can smell salt and iron on Kun’s skin and then something else, something familiar. He dimly realizes that Kun smells like a mixture of blood and the same body wash he uses every morning.

“Sit down,” Kun commands. “Rest for a moment.”

Johnny drops into the pew, lights flashing before his eyes. His wrist is bruised all the way around where Kun bit, the bite a deep, clean puncture among the purple and black. He presses at it experimentally, hissing when it stings. It mildly surprises him that it hurts—even up close, even on his own skin, the bite mark looks like a piece of cheap horror makeup. Too gory to be realistic, too vivid to be real.

“Next time find your own food,” Johnny mutters. He pats his jacket pockets. “I don’t even have a bandaid.”

Kun gives him a fond look, eyes dark. “If it's any consolation, you taste wonderful.”

Johnny bares his teeth at him and Kun laughs, actually laughs, throwing his head back so that his hair falls back from his face. Johnny watches him wipe at his eyes, all human-colored and warm, and wonders if things would be different if they were different people. If maybe they were the same beast, human or otherwise. Johnny shrugs the thought off like a blanket and walks to the window, pulling his sleeve down over his wrist. It stings where the fabric rubs against it, and Johnny reminds himself to cover it as soon as possible. Infection is a bitch.

He switches on the flashlight and shines the struggling beam at Kun’s feet. Everything is silent. “Check the rooms in the back. I’ll look in the graveyard.”

…

They don’t find anything at the church. Another body turns up two days later, ripped apart on the docks. 

“Have you found anything yet?” Taeyong asks, handing him the autopsy file. His eyes are filled with something like doubt or distrust, two things that Johnny does not need any more of in his life.

“Not yet,” Johnny admits, taking the file. The crime scene photos are surreal—too bright, too perfectly framed. He swallows around the growing lump in his throat and closes the file. 

“Let me know when you do,” Taeyong says. He gives Johnny a brief smile, tense and unhappy. 

No goodbyes. The door is closed before Johnny even gets the chance to respond, blocking out the gray of the city. He throws the file on the dining table and drags a hand over his face, inhaling sharply.

There is a thin, tenuous line between hatred and longing. Johnny walks it with all the skill and grace of a seasoned tightrope walker, even as the wind buffets him on both sides. The wind being Kun’s voice, the wind being Kun’s eyes, the wind being his own faithless heart.

Johnny knows two things: 

One: Kun kills people. He is rotten through and through, inhuman and unlovable. Johnny will never love such a creature, cannot willingly give up a part of his heart to someone that is only alive because he regularly steals life from others. Do the dead love? Does it matter?

Two: He has always been terrible at doing the right thing. It's part of the reason Kun is still alive: Johnny can chase him to the end of the earth but will always fail to push him into the darkness. He needs him. Alone, he’s lucky and that’s _it_ , that's _all_.

Johnny bandages the bite mark on his wrist, carefully pressing gauze against the raw parts. It is healing surprisingly fast, and already the bruising has faded to dull blues and yellows. 

Surprising, isn't it, to find that even the worst wounds eventually heal.

…

Seven killings. Seven case files. Johnny sits in the kitchen with every file laid out before him, photos half-hidden beneath the mess.

“We can’t predict the next killing,” Johnny whispers to himself, comforted by the sound of his own voice in the silence. There’s a map on the table. “The murders are random.”

Maybe someone with time on their hands, then, to wander the city. Upper class and comfortable. Johnny circles the location of the first murder. He circles the second. They are too far apart to make sense—almost on opposite ends of the city. He shakes his head and keeps going. 

Seven red circles. One big question.

“Where next?” Johnny whispers.

“Excellent question,” someone says from the other side of the room. Johnny stands so fast his chair skids across the floor, tipping over. Kun catches it before it hits the ground, unfazed. He spins it around and sits.

“How did you get in here?” Johnny hisses, brandishing his little red marker as if it were bladed. 

“You need to lock your windows,” Kun says, looking over at the table. “Nice map.”

“Thank you. What do you want?”

“Checking in on you,” Kun says. “Making sure you’re not dead yet, etcetera, etcetera.”

It's suspicious, to say the least. “What do you _really_ want?”

“Can’t I care for your wellbeing?” Kun asks, pretending to be shocked. “You act as if I’m an evil, heartless being.”

“You are?”

Kun waves his hand. “Besides the point. Have you found any connection between the victims yet?”

“No,” Johnny says, rearranging the case files. “They all lived in different places, worked in different places. They’re all different ages and genders.”

“Think, Johnny. Does your killer choose their victims randomly?”

“They have to.” Johnny sighs. “The killings happen too close together. There simply isn’t enough time for any planning.”

“Depends on how far ahead they’re planning.” Kun slides off the table. “Where were the majority of the victims killed?”

“Mostly near the edge of the city.” Johnny chews on the end of his marker. “Should we start _outside_ the city?”

Kun shrugs. “It doesn’t hurt to try.”

…

Several trains run in and out of the city every day, like clockwork. However, for every rail still in use there’s at least one or two no longer in use—discontinued due to safety or zoning issues. Johnny remembers learning about it in school: his friends would sneak out to the abandoned tracks to take photos and spraypaint their names on the tunnels.

The train tunnel is dark, as it always is. As he sweeps the beam from his flashlight up the dripping stone walls he shudders, more from nerves than cold. At this point, there’s very little he wouldn’t give to have their next stop be this middle of a well lit, populated area. A department store. The park during the day.

“I don’t see anything,” Johnny calls out to Kun, who is sitting on the hood of Johnny’s car. His words echo off the graffitied walls and come hurtling back to him, louder than before. “Maybe there’s nothing.”

Kun shrugs, sliding off the car. He says nothing. Johnny turns, flicking off the flashlight. Might as well head back, or try one of the other abandoned lines, maybe…

Something moves at the end of the tunnel, in the dark. It looks like a person. Johnny fumbles with the light, hands cold. “Hello?” he calls softly, breath misting in the air. “Hello? This is the police.”

Someone clamps a hand over his mouth and yanks him back into the darkness, hard enough that Johnny’s feet lose contact with the ground for a moment.

“Don’t,” Kun whispers as he pulls him down, voice low in his ear. His hand is ice cold.

Johnny bites the inside of Kun’s palm, but he doesn’t let go, fingers digging into his cheek. He thrashes, pulling at Kun’s arm wrapped around his neck.

“Listen to me,” Kun says, continuing to slowly drag him backward. “Listen to me, you _fool._ ”

Johnny bites his hand again and then slices at Kun’s elbow with the knife. He hisses in pain but doesn’t let go, doesn’t loosen his grip. 

“Don’t scream,” Kun says gently, stopping. They are back near the mouth of the tunnel, the train tracks stretching into the distance. “Stay quiet.”

Kun removes his hand but doesn’t let go, instead wrapping his other arm around Johnny’s waist to anchor him in place. His hands quake where they press against his stomach, fluttering against his skin.

“I saw someone,” Johnny hisses. 

“Excellent. Wonderful. Now let's get out of here.” Kun grabs his arm and drags him backward. “You can investigate more in the day.”

“There is someone _in that tunnel_ ,” Johnny argues, pulling his arm free. Kun scowls, eyes burning. “I’m investigating _now_ , whether you like it or not.”

“There is nothing in there for you to see,” Kun says.

“Bullshit. If you hadn’t interfered I could have caught them before they vanished—”

“You weren't going to catch that,” Kun says. Johnny immediately freezes. That. It. Words used to refer to things that are not exclusively inhuman. “And I’d rather not see you get torn all to pieces, thank you very much. I imagine it would be quite unsettling.”

“What was that ?” Johnny whispers, looking around them. His eyes are not as keen as Kun’s, tend to miss small details in the shadow.

“Something even you wouldn't want to tangle with, Detective.” Kun gently lets him go. “Don’t go back there. This is not something you want to be involved with.”

“Who are you to tell me what to do?” Johnny turns around and steps closer. “What gives you the right to dictate my actions?”

“Well, if you want to die feel free to ignore me,” Kun says, snarling. “But I do occasionally have your best interests in mind.”

“I’m going,” Johnny says, flicking on his flashlight. “You’re free to follow.”

Kun curses under his breath as Johnny walks away, jogging to keep up. The tunnel is dark, Johnny’s flashlight the only thing to cut through the black. 

“Turn it off,” Kun hisses. “You’re making yourself a walking beacon.”

“I thought you said there weren’t any more vampires in the city,” Johnny whispers harshly.

“I said there weren’t any of my kind. That thing was not _my kind_.”

Silence. Outside the tunnel it is beginning to rain, first slowly and then all at once, sheets of water running over the mouth of the tunnel. The sound reverberates along the carved rock. At his feet, he can feel the rotting wood of the unused train track.

“Foolish,” Kun sneers. “You must _want_ to die.”

“I didn’t think I would find more of _your_ kind,” Johnny says bitterly. He pulls his knife out of his pocket, a comforting weight in his hand.

In the space of a breath Kun turns on him, grabbing him by the collar and slamming him against the curved wall of the tunnel so hard he can feel every ridge of the rock against his spine.

“I am not like them,” Kun hisses, eyes as red as the rising sun. He slams Johnny against the wall again, looking up at him with a deeply unfamiliar expression. “Don’t you dare say those creatures are _my kind.”_

Kun is so close that Johnny can see the mole under his eyebrow, the faint darkness under his eyes. He can count the hairs that fall across Kun’s forehead, can see that beneath the blonde is a darker brown. He takes a deep breath. Another.

With every cell in his body humming itself to death with fear, he levels the knife in his hand at the side of Kun’s throat. The darkness itself pauses, the air holding itself in like a breath.

“Step back,” Johnny murmurs, calm. Kun’s eyes flicker red and then black and he lets go of his collar. He puts his hands in the air, mocking. 

“Of course, Detective. My apologies.”

The tension slowly dissipates, as tangible as oil in the air between them. Kun looks away, peering into the shadows. Johnny slips the knife back into his pocket and blinks, looking deeper down the tunnel. As well as his eyes have adjusted to the blackness, he still can’t see more than a couple feet in front of him. 

“Fuck this,” Johnny whispers, flicking on the flashlight. “I can’t see anything.”

The end of the beam is a tight circle, carved perfectly from the dark. Captured within it is the shape of a figure, tall and thin, back turned to him. At first glance, it looks like a man in torn clothing. At second glance, it looks like nothing of the sort.

“What the—”

Kun gently places a hand on his wrist, fingers sliding over his skin. He speaks so softly that his words seem to fight the air, more the suggestion of language than the practice. 

“Place the flashlight on the ground,” he murmurs, mouth brushing Johnny’s ear as he leans to place the light on the ground. “Slowly.”

The black plastic rolls slightly on the uneven tracks, beam shifting to the side.

The figure crouches, occupied with something at its feet. There is the sick, wet squelch of flesh and then something that sounds like the grating of chalk on a chalkboard. Johnny clamps his hand over his mouth, gagging. He shudders, rooted to the spot.

Kun places a hand on his waist and pulls him back. One step. Two.

The figure stops moving, standing suddenly. There is something in its hand, dripping. The mystery substance slips between its fingers and hits the tracks with a dull, wet thud.

“When I let go of you,” Kun whispers. “Run as fast as you can to the end of the tunnel. Don’t look back. Do you understand?”

Johnny nods, and Kun’s hands tighten around his waist, fingers digging into his skin through his coat. His grip is hard enough to bruise.

The creature turns slowly, and it is an even more terrible thing to behold in the full light—skin so pale it seems plastered on, every black vein visible beneath the flesh, eyes all read with no pupil or iris. Something that maybe was a man but will never be again. Johnny shakes, every muscle straining to remain still.

Kun lets go.

The creature squeals as Johnny bolts to the entrance of the tunnel, so much farther than it seems. He hears yelling and screeching, the sound of something soft hitting the rock wall. He pulls his knife out of his coat and turns, trying to see if Kun is there in the black somewhere behind him.

A hand closes over his shoulder and he swings the knife, plunging it into the soft flesh of something behind him. There’s a breathless grunt and a string of curses.

Kun huffs and his eyes go red, one hand clutching at his stomach as Johnny pulls the knife out. Blood leaks over his fingers.

“You’re lucky I’m fond of you,” Kun hisses, teeth long and sharp in the dark. “You are _incredibly_ lucky.”

“Oh shit, I’m sorry,” Johnny stammers, grabbing Kun’s arm and pulling it over his shoulder. The stab wound is already sealing itself closed. “Lean on me.”

Kun groans but obliges, and Johnny is somewhat shocked to realize just how light Kun is. Even as he braces himself against Johnny’s side he seems almost weightless, a thing of little substance or form.

“There’s more than one,” Kun winces, face littered with scratches. “There’s a nest back there, maybe 10, maybe more. Next time I give you advice you should take it, you selfish son of a—”

A screech follows them out of the tunnel and before Johnny can even turn Kun is pushing him to the side, his foot slipping over the wet rock surrounding the train track. He hits the ground, hard, arms flailing to regain his balance.

“Kun!” he yells, scrambling to his feet. One of the figures has emerged from the tunnel and is pulling Kun by the leg, digging its teeth into the soft flesh of his thigh. Even now Johnny is astounded by the determined set of Kun’s mouth, the way he doesn’t scream even as the creature screeches. 

Johnny grabs a rock and lobs it at the dark head of the creature. It bounces off, inconsequential as rain on stone, but the soulless thing turns its full-red eyes on him and hisses, distracted.

Johnny raises the knife, steadying himself on uneven ground. The thing moves to lunge, opening its mouth to reveal teeth as long as his finger, longer even, each as sharp and bone-white as a shark’s. The creature’s mouth is jammed full of teeth, top and bottom grating together as it opens and closes its jaws.

There’s a soft squelch and the creature goes still, blinking. There is another and the creature slumps onto the rocks, unmoving. Kun stands behind it, a blackened heart clutched in his hand. His arm is black all the way up to the elbow

“I hate you,” Kun groans tiredly, the heart falling out of his hand. The wound in the creature’s chest leaks black blood, begins to gush and drain between the rocks into the soil. Johnny forces down his rising horror and nausea as the body slowly deflates like a balloon, blood pouring from its mouth and ears and nose and eyes—

Johnny struggles to tear his eyes away. The body turns all to blood and clothing, a thing of little substance. The sky cracks open like the widening mouth of God and rain once again pours onto the train tracks, washing it all into the soil like a nightmare. Little substance.

Kun topples to the ground and Johnny curses, scooping him upright. Kun’s eyes flutter open, red.

“The hospital,” Johnny says, carrying him to his car. He holds Kun upright as he slides into the backseat, bleeding all over the floor. “You need a doctor—”

“Doctors are for the living,” Kun hisses, wiping blood off his cheek. It smears all the way up to his ear, more of a mess than before, black in the darkness. He narrows his eyes in the rearview mirror. “Drive, Detective.”

…

They make it back to Johnny’s apartment with no distractions, Kun groaning as Johnny practically drags him up the stairs. His bloody hand is draped over Johnny’s shoulders, twitching, clutching at Johnny’s collar like a lifeline.

“I’m picking you up,” Johnny finally decides, sweeping an arm under Kun’s legs. He makes a small, muffled noise of protest, but says nothing else as Johnny fumbles with the door and drapes him onto the couch. He lets out a low, pained moan.

“You never listen,” Kun moans, slumped on the living room couch. He’s bleeding all over the upholstery, staining the ugly floral print dark red. “Does it ever occur to you that this is a flaw?”

“What was that thing?” Johnny asks, grabbing a roll of bandages out of the kitchen cabinet. He kneels in front of Kun, trying not to look directly at the mangled mess of skin currently masquerading as his thigh. He wraps the wound slowly, inching his fingers back from Kun’s skin. The flesh is cold.

“What do you think it was,” Kun says tiredly, head falling back against a pillow.

Johnny pauses. The thing in the tunnel and the thing sitting on the couch in front of him are not the same creature at all. “That thing was a vampire?”

“At some point, yes.”

Johnny continues wrapping the wound, thinking. “Do you need anything for those cuts?” he asks, knowing full well what Kun’s response will be.

“The healing process would be going much faster if you hadn’t stabbed me mere moments before I got my leg ripped open,” Kun says. “You owe me for that, at least.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Johnny says, rolling up his sleeve. His wrist has healed quite nicely, the scar from before shining white in the light. He offers him his unmarked wrist and watches his eyes go red and then flash back to brown. “Here.”

Kun is silent for a moment, scratches littering his face and neck, leg bleeding all over the sofa. He looks Johnny in the eye. “No.”

Johnny frowns. “What? You didn't seem to have a problem before.”

“I'm not hungry,” Kun says, closing his eyes. 

“Bullshit. You’re bleeding all over my carpet. You’ve _got_ to be hungry.”

“I said no.”

There is a thin line between hunger and restraint, both of them on opposite sides. There is a thin line between compassion and obsession, and Johnny feels himself tipping to one side more than the other. 

Pendulum, metronome. He goes back and forth, back and forth. This is a chance to walk away. This may be the only chance he has. 

Back and forth.

Johnny takes a deep breath and offers his wrist to Kun again. “Drink something,” he says. “Please.”

The pendulum stops swinging.

“Johnny,” Kun says softly. He sits up and reaches for Johnny's hand, holding it the way one would a particularly delicate vase or flower. His hands, bloody and cold, tremble. “You really do have terrible judgement.”

“Yeah, I know.” Johnny's skin tingles. “Get on with it.”

Sacred space. Johnny longs for a sacred space between them that will never be crossed, something vast that separates them. There is no space here—he can feel Kun’s breath on his skin, can see his blood soaking through the bandages. He smells like metal, neverending, a mix between iron and flowers and salt. Sometimes the scent reminds him of a forest, of the sea, of something natural that eventually turned to decay.

“I wish you realized,” Kun starts, brushing his lips against Johnny's wrist. “Just how much you ask of me.”

The blue vein in Johnny's wrist throbs. “What?”

“I am... _constantly_...acting on your behalf,” Kun finally says. When he looks up at Johnny, his eyes are the distilled crimson of every Valentine’s Day card Johnny has ever seen. “Against my own interests. For you.”

“Thank you?” Johnny's throat is closing, all the words damming up behind his tongue. Kun slides off the couch and there he kneels in front of him, mangled thigh dripping onto the carpet. They are so close that Johnny can count the flecks of gold in his irises, so small against the red.

“Let me,” Kun inhales sharply. “Let me…”

The parts of Johnny that shrink back in fear and the parts of him that rise up in anger melt away and leave something else in their wake, something nebulous and heavy. The two principle emotions that have kept him alive have abandoned him and he is left in that cloudlike sensation, an emotion he has not yet learned to name. Kun reaches out, reverently, and places a hand on his neck.

“Kun, I—”

“Please,” Kun rasps, the desperation in his voice a wholly foreign thing. Johnny's head spins, and he becomes acutely aware of his pulse beneath Kun’s palm, wild and untameable like a bird.

Johnny can only nod and reach out, wrapping his arms around Kun’s waist, curling his fingers into his shirt to anchor himself to the world. Fear comes back to him in fits and starts, slowly edging back into his vision. Kun could do it. He could kill him right now, in his own apartment, leave him just another corpse. He could rip him apart like that body in the street, pull out his heart like a war trophy.

Something tells him he won’t. A small voice whispers to him that _now, the odds are different._

Kun places a hand on the back of his head, gently easing him back until his neck is fully exposed. He places the smallest kiss to the hollow of his throat, touch lingering.

“This will hurt,” Kun says quietly. “You can say no. You can always say no.”

Johnny squeezes his eyes shut, heart pounding through his ribcage like a drum. “Hurry up,” he says roughly, trying to hide the tremor in his voice. “We have things to do.”

He feels Kun smile against his skin. His teeth are as cold and smooth as porcelain, the most delicate fine china. He struggles to keep his breathing even, counts the moments between breaths. Back and forth. Back and forth.

Kun bites down gently, the way a small animal would. It reminds Johnny of the cats behind his apartment building, how they’ll paw at him and gently nip at his hand when he brings them food. The only difference between this and that is that _this_ hurts considerably more. He gasps, digging his fingers into Kun’s waist, vision going black at the corners, veins going red hot. His limbs feel weak, hands tingling. Kun consumes like a forest fire does: wholly, leaving nothing in its wake.

His limbs tingle and go numb, the fire that once crawled over his skin stilling and going cold. The numbness is comforting, freeing.

“Kun,” Johnny sighs, the sound pulled out of him in a single winding breath. Kun’s fingers curl in his hair.

_What, are you afraid of death?_

The voice is close but unfamiliar, and Johnny wonders who he would see if he turned his head to the side. A stranger, perhaps? A shadow in the street, made flesh and bone and intent?

 _I’m not afraid,_ another voice says, watery and unclear. This one is familiar.

Images flash by, each more confusing than the last. A dark forest, trees curving like a doorway. A fire in the night, flames stretching to the sky. A star that moves on its own, unhindered by astronomy. Johnny stares and the images fade, going red then black then blacker still.

_Johnny?_

Someone is pushing the hair away from his face, skin warm. They are unbelievably gentle, voice soft, and Johnny turns unknowingly to their words like a flower to the dimming sun. 

_Are you there?_

Johnny's eyelids are heavy but he blinks them open anyway, wincing at the light in the room. Kun’s arms are wrapped around him, skin flushed like that of a living person. All the scratches on his face are gone, leaving nothing behind. He smells like the coffee Johnny drinks, bitter and warm.

“Who was that?” Johnny rasps, throat dry. “What was that?”

“You need rest,” Kun says quietly. “Go to sleep.”

The suggestion is enough. Johnny closes his eyes and lets the numbness pull him away, if only for a moment.

…

Johnny dreams of three things: 

Gold. He dreams of the gold flecks in Kun’s eyes, pieces of precious metal in the red. He dreams of his hair, blood speckled and falling every which way. He dreams of sunrises, more orange than gold, harsh to the eye.

Silver. He dreams of a small knife, a tiny thing meant to hold the darkness at bay, a barrier pushed aside with ease. He dreams of instruments used to measure, to observe, to autopsy. Tools used to deconstruct.

Red. He dreams of blood, every vein in the world open and draining through cracks at his feet. Kun is handing him an empty glass and he takes it. The glass shatters into a million razor-sharp shards, suspended in their descent to the earth.

 _Don’t you get tired of being the good guy?_ Kun asks, grinning. His mouth is full of teeth. _Don’t you?_

Johnny jolts awake, disoriented and clutching at his sheets. His heart races as he stares up at the ceiling, the familiar walls. He’s in his own bed. He’s safe. He sits up, head throbbing, mouth dry. He reaches up to massage the sore muscle in his neck and is mildly surprised to find the entire area covered in bandages. 

“Good morning.”

Johnny turns. Kun is leaning against the doorway, his ruined dress shirt and pants swapped for a plain black tee and jeans. One of the case files is tucked under his arm, and the way his chest flexes beneath the shirt makes Johnny’s head ache.

“You—”

“Get up,” Kun says, throwing the file on the bed. “The locations aren’t random.”

…

“All the victims were killed within a mile of their homes,” Kun says, laying each case file on the floor like parts of a patchwork quilt. The crime scene photos are shocking splotches of color among the white. 

Johnny blinks slowly. “A mile is a big area in the city,” he says, brain hazy. “And you’re wrong. At least three of the bodies were found farther away. The one in the park, remember?”

“That one had been moved. I suspect the others were as well.” Kun crouches. “Perhaps to break the pattern.”

“What are you trying to say?”

Kun sighs as if the very act of talking to him is a waste of time. “The killer must have known where they lived.”

It makes sense, except…

“We couldn’t find any connection between the victims,” Johnny shakes his head. “All different age groups, genders, occupations...nothing links them together.”

Kun looks up at him. “Who in the city would know the addresses of a great many people?”

“A public office, maybe? Post office? Landlords?” Johnny rubs his forehead, suddenly dizzy. The answer is there, brushing his fingertips, just out of reach. It makes just enough sense to be frustrating, and his skin prickles with disappointment.

Kun places a hand on his back. “Sit down,” he murmurs. “You look pale.”

There's a blanket thrown over the worst of the bloodstains. Johnny avoids it, settling into the lumpy cushions as his head pounds like a drum. 

“So you’re saying it couldn’t be...the killer couldn’t be like that thing we saw last night.”

“No.” Kun presses the back of his hand to Johnny’s forehead. “Those creatures are...shy. You won’t see them within the city. Too much light and noise.”

“So we’re back to square one.” Johnny shivers. “Great.”

“You feel a little warm,” Kun says, eyes narrowing. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he says, pushing his hand away. “Why are you so worried, anyway? Afraid I’ll die on you?”

Kun scowls. “You’d probably be much more tolerable that way.”

Johnny looks at the case files laid out on the floor, a thin layer of evidence held together with nothing of the barest assumptions. For every step they take forward they take several hundred back, losing the sight of the path they were following.

“I have to make a call.”

…

“The killer had to know where all the victims lived,” Johnny says into the phone. “And since there’s no clear connection between them, the killer might have access to a city-wide list of addresses. Post office workers, landlords, the housing department.”

Taeyong is silent on the other end of the line. “That doesn’t make as much sense as you think it does, Johnny. Why would they pick people at random from a list?”

“It’s all I have right now,” Johnny says, turning towards the window. The light that comes in is gray and cold. “Just...look into it. I’m close.”

Taeyong sighs. “Okay.” A pause. “Thank you.”

He hangs up. 

Kun raises an eyebrow as Johnny throws the phone onto the couch, watching in silence as he scratches at the bandages on his neck.

“How did the police commissioner even rope you into this mess?” Kun asks, using Johnny’s knife to carve something into the table. “It's his job, not yours.”

“I’m good at finding people, apparently.” Johnny almost laughs. “He figured I could find this one too.”

“Well, you found me.” Kun shrugs. “There must be some merit to the claim.”

…

The killings begin to slow. A body turns up on Monday. Another doesn’t turn up until Saturday. A week later the entire city is still on self-imposed lockdown, no one willing to be out after dark. Nine murders.

“Maybe your murderer is done,” Kun says, throwing Johnny’s knife at the wall. There are a hundred little scratches in the drywall, and Johnny reminds himself to place a suitably large poster there to hide the damage from his landlord. “There hasn’t been anything in over a week.”

“No,” Johnny says. There’s a pull in his chest, the aching turmoil of butterflies in his stomach, that suggests otherwise. “Not yet.”

…

Things are quiet, for a while. The city begins to breathe again. The nights continue to grow longer, colder. He doesn’t see Kun for days at a time and when he does he crashes on Johnny’s couch, silent. They talk, all cordial things. There’s nothing else.

Johnny keeps telling himself it's not over. What if he’s wrong? Maybe…

He’s sleeping, dreaming about dark streets and abandoned tunnels when he feels something settle on his chest, heavy. His eyes fly open and he opens his mouth to scream. The intruder clamps a hand over his mouth, skin cold and dry.

“Don’t scream,” Kun says quietly, removing his hand. “You need to close your windows.”

“Can’t you just _knock_ at the _door_ like a normal person?” Johnny grumbles. He pushes Kun back. “Get off me.”

“There’s been another murder.”

“Shit,” Johnny blinks. “Where?”

“In the suburbs,” Kun says, easing backward. “Body was still warm when I found it. Poor bastard was killed in their own backyard.”

Johnny rubs his eyes, fumbling with the lamp beside the bed. Kun grabs his wrist.

“There’s more bad news, I’m afraid.” Kun’s eyes flicker red. “The police saw me. I led them on a little chase to the other end of town but they probably already have my description.”

“I thought you were supposed to be the careful one,” Johnny hisses. Kun crouches at the end of the bed, wet shoes soaking into his comforter. “Get off my bed.”

Kun obliges. The shadows seem to form a space for him, just his size, wherever he goes. “Apologies.”

“What do we do now?”

Headlights cross through the window, flashing over Kun’s face and into obscurity. The nights are quieter these days—the silence lives and breathes on its own, glad for the freedom. The city lives but with a great, heaving caution.

“I need to vanish for a while,” Kun says quietly. “It's too dangerous for us to be seen together. Here.” Kun pulls a neatly folded piece of paper out of his pocket and places it on the bed. “My number. Call if you need me.”

He goes to the window, one hand braced on the frame. For a moment Johnny is filled with an unending panic, a fear of losing something he does not know he owns.

“Kun,” Johnny whispers, clutching the slip of paper in his palm so hard the edges dig into his skin. “You could stay. You’d be safe here.”

Kun sits on the windowsill, eyes trained on the street below. He shakes his head, a faint smile ghosting over his lips.

“Oh, Johnny,” he says softly, swinging a leg out of the window. He glances at him, the lights from the city like stars in his eyes. “You really do care too much.”

Between one heartbeat and the next Kun is gone, a wild animal loose in the streets. Johnny can do nothing but watch the curtains flutter, heart hollowing from the inside out, and hope he is safe.

…

“We got an anonymous tip,” Taeyog says over the phone. “A neighbor saw a man at the scene—male, medium height, blonde. He was athletic enough to elude us for hours. I’ve authorized a citywide search for him.”

“Taeyong—”

“Thank you for all your help,” Taeyong says bluntly. “We’ve got it from here.”

Johnny doesn't know what to say. It seems that a permanent lump has begun to reside in his throat, the same size and shape as a bird, always beating its wings against any words that might come. He can’t lie. He can’t tell the truth. He can only witness, unyielding, as things fall apart around him. 

“Are you sure you have the right person?” Johnny asks, the bird in his throat fluttering in disappointment.

He swallows the thought of Kun’s panicked eyes, hand over his mouth. He swallows the memory of Kun’s voice, so soft in the dark.

“Of course,” Taeyong says. He hangs up, the line beeping, and Johnny is left staring at the black screen, the void between.

Of course.

…

Kun was right: he never listens. This is a flaw until it isn’t, is both a gift and a curse.

The crime scene is roped off but the evidence has already been carted away, the body gone. There are no photographers or police now, just the stillness of a living morgue, a place once living that was dead. Johnny slips on his gloves and enters through the front door, noting the small yellow cards used to mark immovable evidence. A broken pane of glass. A half-formed footprint.

The backyard is surrounded by a high fence. There is a dark stain in the middle of the grass, marked with a yellow card. There’s a light switch for the porch lights, bulbs covered in spiderwebs. He flicks it and nothing happens. Burnt bulbs. No spark.

He stands over the bloodstain in the grass and looks up. Taeyong said a neighbor reported seeing Kun, but from here all Johnny can see are rooftops. He crouches, placing a hand on the dew-damp grass. From here, all he can see is the sky.

A six foot high fence. No lights. The math is there but the numbers simply don’t add up. 

Johnny leaves the scene the way he came. The sun is beginning to set.

…

“Where are you?” Johnny asks. The phone signal cuts out for a moment, returning in a sudden staccato burst of static. 

“Somewhere.” The sound glitches, making Kun’s words echo. “What is it?”

“It's practically impossible for any of the neighbors to have seen you,” Johnny says, breathless. “The fence is too high. No lights. And, to be honest, you aren’t that tall.”

He bumps into someone outside the apartment building and hurriedly apologies before bolting up the stairs. 

“Astute observation, thank you. What are you trying to say?”

“You’re not going to believe me.”

Kun’s sigh comes through as a crackle of paper. “Get on with it, Johnny.”

Johnny stops in the stairway. “I think the killer has seen you before. You said the body was still warm when you found it, right?”

A pause. “Yes.”

“They probably waited until you were in the area and reported their own murder,” Johnny looks around. “They knew you were looking for them.”

Silence. The phone crackles and squeals. “If they know who I am they know who you are. You’re in danger.”

“Not important.” Johnny pulls his keys out of his pocket. “Listen, Taeyong _very respectfully_ cut me off but I’m close, I think I can catch them—”

“No, _you_ listen.” Kun’s voice has gone low and dangerous. “You’re in danger, and that attitude is going to get you killed. Don’t risk it, Johnny. _Please._ ”

“I’ve gotta go—”

“Lock your doors. And your windows.”

“Okay, yes, fine—”

“Johnny.”

“I’ll talk to you later! Bye!”

Johnny hangs up and pushes the door open. The sky is already blue-black outside and he closes his windows, snapping the curtains shut. He pulls the case files off the table. He missed something, something important.

He remembers Kun’s face screwing up in disgust, blood on his fingers. He remembers a hundred unimportant details about a hundred very important photos all at once. It all seems so obvious now. Sick blood. New scars. Johnny pulls his phone out of his pocket, hands shaking.

“I figured it out,” Johnny whispers furiously, phone pressed to his ear. “Kun, I figured it out.”

“Don’t do anything until I get there,” Kun says. His voice is low.

“Then hurry the fuck up,” Johnny hisses. He hangs up and throws the phone on the couch, gathering the scattered files into one pile on the table. He’ll go to Taeyong in the morning, but for now he can go to the hospital, look through the records. Maybe Kun to get them through security—

There’s a soft knock at the door. Johnny curses, rushing to the door. 

“Took you long enough,” Johnny grumbles, pulling it open. He freezes when he registers that it's not Kun standing there but someone else—a tall man in a dark hoodie and glasses.

Time slows and stills like honey in a jar, just as sticky but nowhere near as sweet.

“Who are you?” Johnny asks, backing away from the door. “What are you doing here?”

Men can be terrible, too.

“Hello, Detective,” the man says. His face is familiar but Johnny can’t pinpoint why.

It hits him, then: the doctor that bumped into him at the hospital. The hospital—

“Shit!” Johnny slams the door shut but the man has already angled himself halfway inside, pushing the door easily open. He pulls his hands out of his pockets. Both are gloved in bright blue nitrile latex. One holds a long knife, thin and sharp.

“You’re the one,” Johnny whispers, horrified. His heart races, hands shaking. “You killed them.”

The knife goes into his stomach and he gasps, remembering every other body opened up like roses. His vision is going back and forth, black and gray and he’s screaming, shaking. He sinks to the floor like a cinderblock in the sea. 

“It’s not my fault,” the doctor says removing the knife. He frowns, hands poised to strike again. “I was trying to help. I was trying to make them stronger.”

Johnny struggles to his feet but the doctor stabs him again, the knife sliding through his skin like water. When he falls he hits the coffee table, overturning it. Papers fly everywhere—they cover the floor like a fine layer of ice. He slips backward, half propping himself against the wall.

“Don’t worry,” the doctor says, eyes crazed. “I’m cutting the sickness out of you. You’ll be better tomorrow.”

“Get fucked,” Johnny groans, clasping his hands around the man’s and pushing them away. There is barely any strength in his fingers, and they slip over his gloves, slick with blood. The man simply shakes his head and pushes his fumbling hands away. 

“You must stay still,” the doctor says, smiling gently. It is bedside manner at its most distorted, something humane and cruel all at once. “I wouldn't want to accidentally hurt you.”

He’s losing feeling in his wrists. He’s losing feeling in his legs.

“The city has a sickness,” the doctor says unprompted, gloves less blue than red. “I see it all the time. People suffer. People suffer and then they die. I can change that. You’ll see.”

“You’re fucking insane,” Johnny pants, kicking the man in the chest. The doctor lets out a small _oof_ as he falls backward.

“I can’t have you stopping me, not now, not when I’m so close,” the doctor says. “I saw you and your friend at the hospital. I’ll take care of him next.”

The fight goes out in Johnny like a single dimming candle. The fire burning in his veins turns to lead, all fear. He grabs the man’s hand, pleading, _stop this. Stop this._

“You’re just a man,” Johnny groans, cold all over. At this point, it's almost impossible to believe. “You’re just _human._ ”

The doctor pauses. “Of course I am. What else is there?”

Johnny screams. He realizes he’s crying, tears running down the side of his face to pool in his ears. 

The knife. 

Johnny kicks the doctor again and fumbles with his free hand in the mass of papers covering the floor. His knife was on the table when he overturned it. It has to be here somewhere. Somewhere.

Desperation gives him enough strength to reach under the table, his hand closing around something cold. Something bladed.

“Be still,” the doctor says, grabbing his moving hand. “This is the important part.”

Johnny flicks open the knife and slashes at the doctor’s hand. He lets out a surprised yelp and pulls his hand back, dropping his knife. It lands on Johnny’s chest, rising and falling as he breathes.

“You’re being troublesome,” the doctor says harshly, latex glove split open at the palm. He puts all his weight on Johnny’s arm, the knife useless in his hand. “You. Must. Be. _Still._ ”

Johnny screams and the doctor clamps a hand over his mouth, pinching his nose closed. Johnny thrashes, trying to push him off.

 _Men can be terrible, too._

Johnny grabs the doctor's knife from its resting place on his chest and pushes it upwards into his throat.

Gurgling silence. The doctor clutches at his throat and blood pours over his gloves, onto Johnny’s face, his neck. He attempts to stand but falls sideways onto the couch, still bleeding. He is trying to say something. Something that sounds like _how could you_ , but all the words sound like the same steady rush of fluid. A river running dry.

It feels like an eternity before it finally ends. There’s a last gurgle somewhere between the couch and the door, the thud of a body giving up on itself. Silence follows, as hollow as paper. Silence, then footsteps. A pause. More footsteps, faster now.

“You’re fucking late,” Johnny gasps, staring up at the ceiling. His abdomen and legs are numb, his chest burning. “Thanks.”

“I’m sorry,” Kun says hurriedly, kneeling. He places a hand on Johnny’s chest. Johnny can feel his heartbeat against Kun’s cold palm. “Johnny, I—”

“It’s a little late for that,” Johnny grits out, mouth full of cotton and teeth. He feels Kun’s hands on his stomach, pressing down, fingers cold

“You killed him.”

“I didn’t have any other choice.”

Kun’s eyes are soft and sad, even with Johnny’s blood running over his hands. “I can help.”

If Johnny had any strength at all he would stab Kun right under the chin, pin his tongue to the roof of his mouth. Instead, he sighs, feeling the air rush out of his lungs like a balloon half full.

 _I am still human,_ he tells himself as he watches Kun’s eyes go red as cherries. _I still have that._

Johnny’s arm is a lead weight as he slides it across the floor, over his chest, resting it on Kun’s. “I’m not going to say yes.”

“You’re already dead,” Kun says quietly. “There’s nothing anyone can do for you now.”

 _Not dead yet,_ Johnny thinks, mouth filling with blood. 

Kun grabs the phone off the bloody couch. Dials 911. 

“I can’t live forever,” Johnny says, anchoring finality in the words. He watches Kun’s mouth go thin and straight. “I’m not like you. You know that.”

Kun cups his face in his bloody hands, pressing his lips to his forehead. When he speaks Johnny feels it as much as he hears it, his mouth cold against his skin.

“Am I that awful a creature?” Kun says quietly. “Am I so awful a creature that you would not want to live another lifetime with me? Just one?”

In this moment, the temptation is vast. He can live forever, as long as he wants, untouched by all the rest of the world. A little bit of blood for an infinite amount of time. He could do that. All he has to do is say yes. 

“No,” Johnny says, choking on blood. The bird in his throat is beginning to break free. “Not awful.”

_911, What is your emergency?_

“They might not arrive fast enough,” Kun murmurs.

_Hello? Is anyone there?_

“I’ll take that chance.”

_Hello? Stay on the line. Emergency responders are on their way._

Kun places a hand on his neck, brushes his thumb across his cheek. His voice is soft, almost breaking, when he speaks again. “Stay with me, Johnny. Please.”

A long dark night with no end. Men can be terrible, too.

…

He’s looking up at a dark, starless sky. A man is standing in the distance next to a rosebush with no roses, bleeding. Someone is standing in the distance. 

_I love you,_ someone whispers. _I hate you._

_Well, which one is it?_

_Both. Neither._

A man is standing in the distance. Johnny tastes salt and iron, thick on his tongue. There is a voice with no body following him through the black, and his own words sound disembodied and cold around him. He speaks but it is the same, echoing response: words from one shadow to another. Hauntings shared between dead men.

_Both. Neither._

...

He wakes up cold, colder than all the winters in the world, the walls around him twice as white. At first he isn’t sure he’s real—everything is too sharp. Too clear.

There are flowers on the bedside table. A monitor is beeping softly. He’s alive and for one awful moment he hates it, hates having to wake up and continue living despite everything else. He takes a deep breath, holding back tears, willing himself to be as impenetrable and strong as stone.

“They pronounced you dead in the ambulance,” a voice says. Hope glimmers in him, fire bright in the cold, quickly extinguished. Taeyong gives him a small smile, and disappointment threatens to eat Johnny alive, coating his insides like oil. “The doctors said it's a miracle you survived.”

Johnny places a hand on his stomach, spreading his fingers over the bandages there. His neck is bandaged too, braced against movement. 

_Where’s Kun?_ He wants to ask, wants to scream at the walls. _Where’s Kun?_

“What else?” Johnny rasps, voice rough with disuse. 

“We’re searching the suspect’s home now,” Taeyong says, standing. “He worked here, at the hospital.”

Johnny squeezes his eyes shut. “It’s done.”

Taeyong rests a hand on his shoulder, hand warm. Living. “You’re a hero, Johnny.”

Johnny cannot tell if his exhale is meant to be a laugh or a wail. A hero, indeed.

…

His apartment is empty when he finally gets back. The hospital discharges him with a roll of bandages and a bottle of painkillers. They let him keep the half-wilted flowers from his bedside.

The apartment is clean. The stained couch cushions have been removed, all the blood scrubbed from the floor. The case files are gone. The table is righted again. If he looks at the wall he can see a hundred little scratches in the drywall, his windows open. He chucks the flowers in the trash, gray-green stems sticking out of the bin.

It almost feels like home again. Almost.

…

He’s lying in bed, awake, the window half open. It’s snowing outside and ice covers his windowsill but at this point it feels right. It feels as if the cold cannot hurt him any more than anything else can. 

The window creaks. Silence.

“Kun,” Johnny whispers. “You’re back.”

Kun rests his hand on his forehead. His skin feels almost warm. “Couldn’t stay away.”

He’s a sight for sore, tired eyes. He doesn’t look any different than the last time Johnny saw him: gold hair, red eyes, silver earring. Palettes.

“Where have you been?” Johnny asks, sitting up. His body creaks in protest, a broken thing held together with will alone.

Kun pushes the window shut. “You’re too cold.”

“Sometimes,” Johnny rasps. “I think I’ll never be warm again.”

Kun sits on the edge of the bed and takes his hand, locking their fingers together.

“I know,” he says. “I know.”

…

A day feels like a hundred years for no particular reason. The world returns to palettes and simple logic: gray, white, darker gray. If today exists then tomorrow will, too.

He gets letters and phone calls from journalists and reporters. The police department. The mayor. Taeyong has been telling half the city of his _heroic_ exploits, about how their city is lucky to have such brave, heartfelt citizens.

He doesn’t leave the apartment. He threw his phone out of the window just to hear it crack against the pavement. Black. Grey. White, for the snow.

“Johnny,” Kun says slowly. “They won’t let you be.”

Johnny is aware of this.

Kun continues, voice soft bordering on weak. “They’ll congratulate you now and applaud your sacrifices but when the time comes they will ask you again. And again. And again.”

Johnny is also aware of this. “I did the right thing, didn’t I?”

“You did.” Kun takes his hand. “But you shouldn’t have had to.”

The night city has returned to what it was before: light and noise, cars on the streets. Voices drifting through the open window. Johnny sighs, chest aching as he squeezes Kun’s hand.

“What do you want me to do?” he asks.

Kun takes a deep breath, mouth curling around the words. “I’m leaving the city. Come with me.”

“Where are you going?”

“Anywhere,” he says. He raises Johnny’s hand to his mouth. “I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”

The night city has returned, too loud and bright. Outside a car alarm goes off, blaring into the silence. Headlights sweep over the walls, yellow and white. Dark. Light. If today exists then tomorrow will, too.

“I don’t know,” Johnny finally says, watching Kun’s eyes flutter shut. “I’ll have to think about it.”

Kun exhales lightly, almost a laugh but not quite. “You always were stubborn.”

Not stubborn. Foolish.

...

A week becomes a month. If there is winter there must be spring, eventually.

Taeyong shows up at his door.

“The man we pursued during the other investigation matches the description of a cold case suspect from several years ago,” Taeyong says, handing him the file. It's as heavy as a stone in Johnny’s hands. “I thought you might want to take a look.”

Johnny opens the file. At the very front is a sketch of a man with narrowed eyes and blonde hair. It's not the spitting image of Kun but it's awfully close, the intent in his eyes dark and lifelike.

Johnny recognizes the sketch for a different reason, though. It's the same sketch the police made when they first spoke to him at seven years old, all those years ago. It's _his_ description turned pen and paper, made real.

“I can’t,” Johnny says slowly, closing the file. “I can’t do this anymore.”

Taeyong smiles but doesn’t take the file back. “I understand. Feel free to hang on to the file.”

He doesn’t understand. No one in this _damn_ city can understand.

Johnny closes the door and goes to the sink, turning on the water. He takes each page out of the file and tears it into pieces, rinsing it down the drain. He turns on the garbage disposal and keeps going, shredding the pieces until they are nothing, nonexistent, never existed at all. He’s crying, chest heaving and the world is all dark and cold and—

“Johnny,” Kun murmurs, pulling him away from the sink. “The water is too hot. You’ll burn yourself.”

Gray. The world is gray.

…

“Kun,” Johnny says, turning his pocket knife over in his hands. “Why didn’t you do it?”

“You didn’t want me to.”

“Never thought you would have cared about something like that,” Johnny says. He throws the knife at the wall.

“You would have cared.”

Johnny turns off the light, pacing the room. “I would have forgiven you.”

Kun’s eyes are the singular red of a dying sun. “No,” he says. “You wouldn’t have.”

…

The police lines flutter in the cold wind, sunshine yellow in the gray. Johnny watches a small crowd gather outside the line, pointing and whispering. 

Do a good thing once and someone will ask you to do it again. Do a good thing twice, and someone will expect it from you.

Johnny pulls his coat closer around him as he watches police come in and out of his apartment building. A photographer with blue gloves exits the building, frowning. Open windows. Shattered glass. Scratches in the wall. Kun always did have a flair for the dramatic.

Do a good thing enough times and no one thinks you’ll do a bad thing.

“Let’s go,” Kun says, placing a hand on his waist. He gives Johnny a small, sharp smile, hair falling over his face. Almost human.

Johnny takes a deep breath, the air filling his lungs with ice. There is a small spot of warmth deep in his chest, a flame eating up all the oxygen he gives it. Growing. Breaking free. 

“Yes,” Johnny says. He takes Kun’s hand as they turn away. “Let’s go.”

**Author's Note:**

> [blood debt](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7jiB4K20Jf5TK0wkmtC8PQ)
> 
> follow me on [twitter!](https://twitter.com/nastaeyong)


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